Article biased in favor of lab

Do you call Amy Nile’s Jan. 12 article, “Research monkeys live and die in Everett lab” balanced journalism? It sounded more like an advertisement for SNBL!Why didn’t you give Michael Budkie of Stop Animal Exploitation Now equal space?!SNBL’s vice president claims SNBL “embraces the same ethic that guides medical doctors — do no harm.” A monkey was boiled alive there in 2008! SNBL’s animal care supervisor was fired when she told federal inspectors that SNBL employees also were abusing primates, spraying them with acid and intentionally slamming them on the floor!Previously the USDA opened a series of federal animal welfare violation cases against SNBL after 19 monkeys died. At that time the USDA spokesperson confirmed that SNBL “is on its risk list by having a pattern or non-compliances,” as reported by KIRO TV news.Many doctors are against animal research. The ex-director of the National Institutes of Health, Dr. Elias Zerhouni, said in June, “Researchers have over-relied on animal data. The problem is that it hasn’t worked... We need to refocus and adapt new methodologies for use in humans to understand disease biology in humans.”Dr. Robert Mendelsohn: “The reason why I am against animal research is because it doesn’t work. It has no scientific value. One cannot extrapolate the results of animal research to human beings and every good scientist knows that.”Dr. Charles Mayo: “About the abuses, the cruelty, and the horror of vivisection of living animals, I abhor it. It ought to be abolished. I know of no achievement, no scientific discovery that could not have been obtained without such barbarism and cruelty. The whole thing is evil.”The Animal Welfare Act does not apply to lab animals. No anti-cruelty to animal laws can help them. Experimenters don’t even have to give them anesthetics!If SNBL’s animal labs are so wonderful, why can’t we see them? We taxpayers fund them; we should be able to see the animals.Darlene Kaiser Lynnwood

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